Election musings.

Election musings.  I was once a registered Democrat, tend to think like a Libertarian, but usually vote Republican. The Democratic Party left me behind years before I was called deplorable or a smelly Wal-Mart shopper. The issues are complex. I don’t hate either Trump or Biden, and along with many, it comes down to a choice between the lesser of two evils.  In my opinion, socialism is the greater evil.  I resist.

Socialism leads to tyranny and loss of individual freedom. It does not fulfill its promise of equality, only equality in poverty. While the elites retain and amass power and wealth, most live in declining standards.  Dissent is eliminated. In places where socialism appears successful, it is sustained by a wealth of natural resources and underlying capitalism. To use public roads, schools, libraries & such as examples of accepting socialism is incorrect and disingenuous. These are examples of local government services, not economic takeovers.  These services exist in the private sector as well as public. And just to be fair, I acknowledge that there are flaws in the capitalist system as well, but they pale in comparison to the flaws of socialism. I am not against more generous public programs for our own citizens.  I am not against the ACA, just fix its flaws and keep your hands off my private insurance.  

The second issue for me is the violence I watched come across my news feed almost daily for months. It was sickening and it must stop.  Law and order must be restored. I lived through the Freddie Gray riots in Baltimore. No one felt safe until law & order was restored by the National Guard. If I lived or had a business in one of those cites/states that have not lifted a finger to restore law & order, I would relocate. Immediately. And take my business & my patronage elsewhere. I defend the right to peaceful protest.  Even the kneeling by NFL players. Taking a knee in sports has a specific meaning, which was not lost on me as it applied to the reason for the protest. “When one of us is down, we take a knee until they get up”. But nothing good comes from Antifa. Ever. Their aim is not the common good, but to destroy. This leads again to the issue of socialism. Freedom is not license.   

Surprisingly, coronavirus is third.  It is what it is – a novel virus with no prior data & inconsistent emerging data & lack of transparency coming from pundits instead of scientists. How is one supposed to “follow the science” when it changed so rapidly and sometimes dramatically in its recommendations.  A lot of good has been done to mitigate this disease, some opportunities have been missed, and some states/areas mismanaged. People just need to use common sense for the common good.  Masks are mandatory in Maryland.  Yet people wear them under their nose.  Everywhere. Even at medical facilities. The virus is still there, people are still contracting it, but far fewer are dying from it. Treatment is much improved. Full recovery rates are phenomenal. Even when a vaccine is available, there will be people who refuse it. I am high risk & will take the necessary precautions - wear a mask, wash/sanitize my hands, maintain social distance - so that I can live a full life. I also recognize that it is not all about me. The economic impact of the lockdowns cannot be ignored. I was not hurt economically, but many were. Recovery from this pandemic must carefully balance both public health and the economy.  Freedom and responsibility are two sides of the same coin.

I would like to vote Libertarian; however, others have warned that this might swing the pendulum away from the direction I would like.  I have no animus toward Trump or Biden personally. There are things I like and things I dislike about each.  It is the socialist ideology of the far left that I object to as the antithesis of Libertarianism. Though Biden disavows this ideology, he is indebted to it, and does not have the physical, mental, or emotional acumen to go against their bidding. Ultra-right-wing ideology is also detrimental to a free society when it fails to recognize its own culpability and barriers to individual liberty.  

I do not believe that some hybrid form of socialism can be implemented without trampling on the great freedoms – freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press and freedom of religion. I resist.

The Health insurance - health care dilemma

I don't post to this blog often, but decided to give my 2 cents about health care-health insurance.  As a state employee, I still have good insurance - an HMO (now known as EPO) through CareFirst BC/BS. My employer pays most of the premium, though I do contribute a portion of that premium.  I have no deductible and my copays are low.  If I complete wellness activities, some copays are waived.  A "Cadillac"plan - probably as good as it gets in today's market.  So far, I have only seen modest premium increases since the ACA has been in effect. Good insurance - good care.  I am fortunate & I am grateful.

I have mixed reactions to the results of Obamacare so far.  I have a unique perspective because I deal with people every day who have truly been helped by two specific features.  1. coverage for children up to age 26 on their parents' plan, and 2. Expanded Medicaid. For the unemployed & those with no income, Obamacare has been a blessing. They pay no premium, and have little or no out of pocket costs. I have helped many of these folks get Medicaid & stressed the importance of taking care of their health before catastrophic need.

It is the individual and family "exchange" coverage for the "working poor" that I question.  I have looked at the "metal" plans, premiums, deductibles & out of pocket costs.  This is lousy coverage with a high cost to the individual & family.  If they are eligible for a subsidy, this only goes toward the premium, not the out of pocket costs.  The deductibles & copays are not affordable - especially for the working poor.  So they have an insurance card, but in reality they still cannot afford health care.

Most people I know (self-employed or employer did not provide coverage) said they did not qualify for any kind of subsidy.  It is absolutely NOT affordable, & the costs keep rising. These are the folks who either pay the fine or claim hardship.  Either way, they have no insurance & don't get any until catastrophic need occurs.

Then there are the vast majority of people who have or had coverage through their employer.  They used to have decent insurance coverage, with reasonable premiums - many had HMOs.  The HMO, which was supposed to keep costs down is now the most costly type of insurance.  Most employers no longer offer the HMO as an option. One of the fallouts from Obamacare is that many of these folks now pay higher premiums for less coverage. The out of pocket costs are skyrocketing for this group.  They have insurance, but avoid going to the doctor when they get sick because they can't afford it.

So yes, the system is still broken and in need of an overhaul. I have not read the AHCA documents, but have listened to the rhetoric & hype from both sides.  Whatever they do, I believe that keeping coverage by parents until age 26 & some form of expanded Medicaid needs to continue.  I like the idea of tax credits as opposed to subsidies - put the $ back into the hands of the individual - taxpayer - instead of the insurance company.

Personal Finance & Budget Software

I have been testing various programs for personal finance. I started with Quicken in 1994 because it was in the software package included with my 1st PC. Then I switched to Microsoft Money 95. I preferred MS Money, but there really was not much difference. At that point, I only used the software to keep my checkbook register. Neither Money 95 not my bank offered online services at that time, so I entered everything manually. After online banking became available, my son bought me an updated version of Money & I connected my accounts. I still used Money basically as a checkbook register & added the savings & credit cards. It was nice to have the download & not have to enter everything manually. I upgraded to Money 2004, which came with a new computer purchase, and continued to use Money up until Microsoft decided to discontinue it in 2010.

I switched back to Quicken (2010 Starter Edition) and I had problems with it. The automatic downloads did not always work. The initial download from my bank set up my credit card, but then would not download transactions to in after the initial download. When I tried to manually download the transactions, Quicken tried to set up a new account - would not let me download it to the existing account.

I gave up & went back to MS Money. Now I can continue to use MS Money as long as I want without support & without online services. Microsoft offered all Money users a "sunset" version for free. I can download transactions manually, and even financial institutions that no longer provide downloads for MS Money (AKA Discover), provide download to a QIF file, which MS Money supports.

I have been looking for alternatives to Quicken, should there come a day when I can no longer use MS Money. Preferably free. If I am going to pay, I would buy Quicken Deluxe, and hopefully find resolutions to the problems I experienced with the Starter version.

Mint.com - comes from Intuit - makers of Quicken. It is free & it works very well. Works better than Quicken 2010 Starter did for me. Mint has become an essential part of my personal finance plan. Mint is an online service, and some people might not be comfortable with keeping their financial information in the cloud.

Ace Money Light - The light version is free, but it only allows you to add 2 accounts. It is a good program for a beginner to learn to work with personal finance software. The full version costs less than Quicken.

Grisbi - Free. I liked it at first, but then I could not enter a split transaction.

GnuCash - is more business oriented, but can be used for personal financed. It is free, but I found it complicated. Double entry is not for beginners.

KMyMoney - Free. Also uses double entry, but less complicated than GnuCash.

Replacing Hard Drive

The hard drive errors came back - CHKDSK ran without me asking it to, then boot failure. I removed the HD & connected it as a USB storage device on my laptop, but I cannot access the files. Says disk not formatted. I had moved everything but my pictures.

I got a new 1 TB hard drive at Best Buy & restored the Dell computer from the back-up. The restore was successful, but I ran into a problem with HDD size. The old hard drive was 150 GB & the new HD was 1 TB - only the 150 GB was accessible. I followed the directions but was unable to increase the size of the partition. Problem solved - there was an extra unused partition that I had to delete. Dell E-510 restored with 1 TB hard drive. I can try to reformat the old HDD, but I think it is toast.

Hard drive failure is not fun, but it was a challenge solving this problem.

My Dell E-510 PC that I bought in 2006 had a major crash this morning.  I had run Windows 7 back up to external hard drive yesterday. This morning, it froze and would not reboot.  First, Windows prompted me to do system repair, then system restore.  Then I tried to restart normally - would not start. I reconnected the external drive, and got out the Windows Restore CD - not sure if it rebooted from the CD or from the hard drive, but it finally did complete the start up.  Running very slow.  I don't plan to replace it, but I think I need to get the files moved to the laptop.  I have the back up files, but not sure how I would access them if the PC completely fails.

Replacing HVAC system

I have learned more about HVAC in the past 2 weeks than I ever wanted to know!  The unit we have now is the York High efficiency model (E1HB030S06A) that we had installed around 1990.  We had to call BGE for service in June, and it was low on R-22, so they charged it up - ran fine all summer.  About 2 weeks ago when we had a couple of hot days, it quit on us, so we called BGE & it was low on R-22 again.  The advice from BGE (& everyone else) is that it would be very difficult to find the leak & that it is really too old to patch up.  We have been told that this old York unit was top of its line when we got it, most likely an 8 SEER.  It has given us good service for 23 years, but it is time to replace it.

We have had several estimates.  (Sears, BGE & a couple of independent contractors).  Prices vary wildly, as do opinions of what is the best value in cost, efficiency, reliability, etc.  Each contractor tends to have their favorite brand & tends to disparage the competition.  Customer satisfaction ratings also very wildly.  Thankfully, it is the end of September & not the middle of summer or winter, so I can really do my homework & decide.  This is a major expense. 

Carrier - 2 estimates between 6-7K for 13 SEER base unit, financing available
Rheem estimate around 5.5K for 13 SEER base unit, with extended warantee
Trane estimate around 4.5 K for 13 SEER base unit, offered air scrubber & extended warantee at 5.5K
Frigidaire estimate around 5K for 16 SEER unit

Consumer Reports rates for least repairs as follows:
1. American Standard
2. Bryant
3. Trane
4. Carrier
5. Rheem
6. Lennox
7. Goodman 

Frigidaire did not make the list, but it is a more efficient unit at a decent price, with a contractor we know who is on Angie's List.  

Most of the complaints about Frigidaire on other sites had to do with their warantee, which only covered parts on most models.  Industry standard is to cover parts for 10 years & labor for 1 or 2 years.  

Leadership: Working on a Long-Term Project

For the past year, I have been working on a project to bring Vacation Bible Camp back to my parish.  A lot of churches offer VBS & we had various summer programs for the kids on & off.  I believe that a summer program is an important & valuable supplement to the regular Religious Ed program. I have been part of big projects before, but this is my first time as Director.

I got involved in 2007 when I registered 2 grandsons (both were 5 at the time) & I took a week off to volunteer & give them the opportunity to attend. The kids seemed to enjoy doing this activity & spending the week with Grandma.  We did it again in 2008 & 2009. After a turnover of Religious Ed directors in 2010, we stopped having it at my parish.  So I registered the grand kids (now 4 were old enough) at a neighboring parish & I volunteered there as well.  In 2011, we could not find a program at any parish that worked with their busy little lives, so I did a home school version.  I knew the basic format & I found lots of information online. The Theme was St. Francis of Assisi. We did Bible Stories, crafts, games, snack & music.  We did a service project making a casserole for Our Daily Bread.  This is when I decided that I could get VBS started again at my parish by volunteering to head it up.  I also decided to be an assistant catechist for Religious Ed on Sundays.

In 2011-2012, I approached the new Religious Ed director about re-starting VBS, but it was put on the back burner for 2012. So I volunteered at another parish again, with the intention of learning as much as I could about presenting the program as a whole, not just volunteering for a small part.  Basically, I was a VBS Director in training.  I was also asked to make a proposal for the pastor & the parish council to have it in 2013.  I did a lot of research, building on what I had learned from doing the home school VBS program the year before.  I compared the various program kit packages available for cost & content, looked at volunteer needs, space needs, participant cost, etc.  The proposal was accepted providing I could get the volunteers needed. So I started promoting the idea with a volunteer table at the monthly fellowship in Sept. 2012 ( & almost every month thereafter).  In Nov, the Knights of Columbus approached me & offered to help by purchasing the program kit.  We had a spot in the bulletin almost weekly to generate interest & recruit volunteers.

In April, I held the first volunteer meeting & we set dates, the registration fee & deadline, and got a few of the volunteer assignments in place.  Registration forms went home with the Religious Ed kids & the parish school kids, and continued to have announcements in the bulletin.  I visited the Middle school youth group to ask for youth volunteers & made a few crafts from the program kit to display at fellowship.  At the last fellowship in May, we set up a "giving tree", with pictures of each craft & snack item & a list of supplies needed.  Then we moved the giving tree to the back of the church & the priest mentioned it in the announcements.  I also visited the high school youth group to ask for youth volunteers. 

Donations of craft supplies & snack items are coming in from the giving tree & I held the second volunteer meeting in June.  We closed registration with a total of 30 campers,  8 youth assistants & 20+ adult volunteers.  We were expecting more campers - had set the limit at 50.  Not sure why we did not get more except for the usual reasons: Catholics don't do VBS as well as Protestants, day program vs evening program (ours is day) & later in the summer vs early in the summer (ours is later), and/or we closed registration too soon (our deadline was 6 weeks before the event).  With 30 campers, we can focus on quality rather than quantity. I decided that if anyone called me, I would accept more registrations up until 30 days before the event, but no last minute registrations.

I have a great team, but I think I am not delegating enough.  I collected the donated items & inventoried them.  In the process I made a few sample crafts, but I am ready to hand the craft bin over to the craft leader.  I have been listening to the music CD on my way to & from work & I know all of the songs.  Because I am a music oriented person, I will be helping with that station, unless I can find someone else. I can read music & peck out a tune on the piano, but that is the extent of my abilities.  I would like to find someone who can play guitar.  I delegated the decorations.  I made some paper mache hats for the leaders & I have a few signs & posters made from the kit for decorations, but I told each station leader that the decorations could be as simple or creative as they wanted.  I know it is difficult for people with busy lives to attend a lot of volunteer meeting, so I communicate a lot by e-mail. 

Now this project is kicking into high gear. During the next 5 weeks we have a lot to do. Parent letters go out this week. T-shirt orders next week.  Youth training for volunteer assignments & skit practice the week after 4th of July.  Volunteer meeting & shopping 2 weeks before event, & decorating 1 week before event.  Overall, I have been amazed by how well the planning & now the preparation have unfolded.  It has been very helpful to follow the timeline suggested in the kit.  This leadership experience has been awesome.